Zentralörtliche Siedlungshierarchie in Ostsachsen: ihre Bestimmung durch interaktive Verflechtungsmessung

Abstract

Since political change took place regional disparities are deepening in the new Länder. Whereas some economic centres develop increasingly, many weakly structured regions trail more and more behind. There exists the threat of a "passive renewal". This is especially true for the region of eastern Saxony suffering from a "double peripheral situation". Eastern Saxony is marked by an unfafourable economic starting position, by an extreme peripheral location within Germany and the European Union as well as by considerable deficits in the settlement system and the infrastructure. The consequence is a high aboveaverage out-migration of inhabitants, especially among the active population. In all probability, that trend will also continue in the medium term. In order to understand the current supply situation, the trade interactions between local centres and their surroundings were determined by means of a survey. Therewith, the actual use of the local centres for shopping was measured (so-called "Umlandmethode"). The purpose of the study was to determine the importance of the different local centres and to assign them to a rank in the central place hierarchy. In a first step, the towns and villages of eastern Saxony were classified according to their importance not taking into account their trade areas. From the detailed survey data, three informative measures were determined for every town and village: the rate of local provision - it measures the proportion of shopping interactions satisfied in the own residential town or village; nodality - it expresses the importance of the given town or village as a shopping centre for the region; centrality - it is obtained by deducing the proportion of shopping interactions "spent" for the purpose of the own population from the overall volume of shopping interactions. That category indicates the surplus or the deficit in importance of the given centre. In contrast to the common procedure deducing the total need of a town or a village from the nodality value a more precise method could be applied here because of the detailed data basis. This has special effects on the classification of the smaller centres. In accordance with this method, the settlement system of eastern Saxony was re-evaluated. The clearly leading centre is the city of Bautzen followed by Görlitz, Zittau and Hoyerswerda. Of medium importance are Neugersdorf, Löbau, Weißwasser and Niesky. Altogether, the sector of lower order centres shows a strong concentration of towns and villages in the south of eastern Saxony, while supply deficits exist especially in the north. The establishment of lowest order centres could improve this situation.